October 1999 — 1999-12-23

In October 1999, there were 1,098 mass layoff actions by employers as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single establishment, and the number of workers involved totaled 118,938. Both the number of layoff events and the number of initial claimants for unemployment insurance were lower this October than in October 1998. The total of layoff events from January through October 1999, at 12,018, and the total number of initial claimants, at 1,390,871, were lower than in January-October 1998 (12,760 and 1,419,065, respectively). (See table 1.) The monthly series in this release covers mass layoffs of 50 or more workers beginning in a given month, regardless of the duration of the layoffs.